The Life of the Poet Workshop with Leonard Gontarek

Thursdays in November, 5:30pm – Workshop The Life of The Poet Workshop with Leonard Gontarek Thursday, 5:30 –7 PM. $60 for four sessions. Contact: Leonard Gontarekgontarek9@earthlink.net

Leonard Gontarek is the author of St. Genevieve Watching Over Paris, Van Morrison Can’t Find His Feet, Zen For Beginners and Déjà Vu Diner (Autumn House Press, 2006). He is the editor of This Is Forever The Room, The Balloonists Are Coming Back From The Clouds, and Rain Of The Haunted Trees, anthologies of children’s poetry. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines, including American Poetry Review, New England Review, Poetry Northwest, The Best American Poetry 2005. His poetry has been awarded prizes by the Atlanta Review, Poet’s Attic, Mad Poet’s Review and Mudfish Magazine. His work is included in Joyful Noise: An Anthology of American Spiritual Poetry. He has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes, and twice received poetry fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He is a poet in the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership.

“The workshop poets are asked to go outside their own work – exploration. The development of their style and voice is enriched by this process. They consider possibilities that would not have occurred to them before. My intention is to open as many avenues as possible to make their work stronger. They return to their town work and see it through new eyes. They have new respect for their poems and treat it as the sacred material it is. Additionally, in the case of The Philadelphia Writers Conference, there will be discussion of how to manage the poet’s life and real life. How do we “find time” to write, how do we stop feeling terrible if we can’t find the time to write. Spiritual crisis. At the very least, we can find solace and understanding in our shared difficulties.